## Facts

- Iris Charles died in 1986 owning two premises on Cork Street, Roseau, Dominica: No. 9 (her residence) and No. 18 (a dwelling house with an “addition” consisting of a garage and storeroom).
- No. 18 (house plus garage/storeroom) was registered as a single lot under one certificate of title.
- Iris’s 1980 will devised No. 9 to her nephew, John A. Charles, “absolutely.”
- The will devised No. 18 to her niece, Yvette Barzey, as “my house and lot,” and separately stated: “The addition to the house where the garage and storeroom is located I give to my nephew Mr John A. Charles to be used by him as long as he wishes.”
- John had long used the garage and storeroom for storage connected to a pharmaceutical business operated from adjacent premises.
- After Iris’s death, a dispute arose whether Barzey took No. 18 free of any interest in favor of John, or whether John retained an enforceable interest in the garage and storeroom.

## Issues

1. Whether the will, properly construed, gave John a valid life interest (or other limited interest) in the garage and storeroom at No. 18, with Barzey taking the fee simple subject to that interest.
2. Whether the local Wills Act provision (presuming a devise passes the whole estate absent contrary intention) required Barzey to take an immediate unencumbered fee simple in No. 18.
3. Whether the gift to John “to be used by him as long as he wishes” was void as a repugnant condition inconsistent with Barzey’s fee-simple devise.

## Decision

- The Privy Council allowed John’s appeal and reversed the Court of Appeal.
- The Board restored the trial judge’s order that Barzey took the fee simple in No. 18 subject to a life interest in favor of John in the garage and storeroom.
- The Board held the will showed a contrary intention sufficient to displace any statutory presumption of an unencumbered absolute estate in possession.
- The Board held the repugnancy doctrine did not invalidate a conventional carve-out of a life interest from a fee simple, and distinguished authority relied on by the Court of Appeal.

## Legal Principles

- A will is construed to give effect to the testator’s intention, so far as consistent with law, reading the dispositions as a coherent scheme.
- A statutory presumption that a devise without words of limitation passes the whole estate applies only absent “contrary intention”; it does not prevent carving out lesser estates or determine whether the fee simple is in possession or remainder.
- A life interest (or comparable limited estate) carved out of land devised in fee simple is compatible with the fee simple and is not void for repugnancy.
- The repugnancy doctrine is directed at conditions that negate essential incidents of a fee simple (such as certain disabling restraints), not at ordinary divisions of enjoyment between a life tenant and a remainderman.
- Informal language such as “to be used by him as long as he wishes” may be construed, in context, as creating a life interest rather than an indeterminate or unlimited right.

## Conclusion

The Privy Council held that the will validly granted John a life interest in the garage and storeroom at No. 18, and that Barzey’s fee simple in the property was taken subject to that interest; neither the Wills Act presumption nor the doctrine of repugnancy defeated the carve-out.


Charles v. Barzey, [2002] UKPC 68 (P.C. 2002)